Stone Circles and a Magic lake

This is going to be a long one, folks. I’m excited and am on a roll. Sorry if you learn more about Neolithic spiritual practices and the Celtic solar year than you want to. Consider it your punishment for …….whatever. You know what you did. And you could always just dip into it for tidbits.

Monday 7/26: Today we drove about 1 hour and 50 minutes (which in the States is not much, but here seems far, even to those who live here) west to County Limerick to a wonderful place, Lough (Lock) Gur. We went there once before, a few winters ago, in the first week of January, when Nature couldn’t decide if it was raining or sleeting, but whichever, it was doing it hard. Anna, Nick, and Eric were with us for those 12 days, and we visited Lough Gur on our last day in Ireland, as it is close to Limerick city, which is where Shannon airport is. Lough Gur is a whole landscape complex, made up of a number of small hills, a beautiful lake, and more Neolithic, Iron Age, Bronze Age and early Celtic burial chambers, settlements, forts, and henges than you can imagine in one place. Grange Stone Circle, located near one end of the lake, is the largest in Ireland, and is gorgeous. It is large and complete, with 113 (!) large stones marking the perfect circle, which has a diameter of 46 meters (multiply by three and add some, for feet). At the eastern end is a beautifully stone-delineated processional entrance way, which frames the Summer Solstice sunrise perfectly. Just to one side of this entrance are two large stones together forming a V-shape, and in that V rises the Beltane (May Day) sunrise; to the other side of the entrance are two more V-forming stones, which frame the Lughnasa/Lammas (August 1) sunrise. Directly opposite from these two Vs are another two, which respectively frame the Imbolc (February 1-2) sunset and the Samhain (pronounced Sawhen or Souwhen, (all Hallows Eve, or Halloween Eve, November 1) with the ou being sounded as in the word sour) sunset. If you think about it, these 4 days are at four poles of the year, each 3 months from the last: Samhain was the first day of the Celtic New Year, with an extra day—October 31—thrown into the year (the Celts divided their year into 13 equal lunar months of 28 days each, but needed one extra day to bring it into alignment with the actual solar year of 365 days; lots of civilizations have used certain days or groups of days as if they were in-between days, out-of-the-normal days, such as the 12 Days following Christmas in medieval Europe, when the Yule celebrations were governed by the Lord of Misrule, and the barriers, or veils, between the worlds were thin or gone. For the northern Europeans, Yule was that time; for the Celts in Ireland and Great Britain, it was All Hallows Eve, Samhain, the day when the spirit and/or fairy world mixed with the human world, and so normal life had to cease, special care needed to be taken, and certain kinds of knowledge could be gained). 3 months after Samhain came Imbolc (which became Candlemas in the Christian calendar), the beginning of Spring in the British Isles, and the feast of new lambs, of Brigid, of growing light and green things. Again, 3 months later came May Day, Beltane, which was about the summer beginning, and was focused on fertility and the promise of abundance. And in another 3 months was Lammas, Lughnasa, basically the feast of the harvest, of the first loaves. All of these are called Fire Feasts, and also the “cross-quarter days.” They are, of course, exactly in-between the four other major Fire Feasts of the Summer and Winter Solstices and the Spring and Fall Equinoxes. While all 8 of these are based on the solar calendar and marked the solar year, for some reason the Celtic people paid greater attention to the cross-quarter days than the Solstices and Equinoxes.

So, with that bit of background behind us, there is one more important bit of context. The Neolithic people of the British Isles (basically what Neolithic means is early farming people, who lived in the Late Stone Age) were joined somewhere about 4-5000 years ago by a culture called the Beaker People, because of a specific kind of pottery they made. These people knew how to do something magical and powerful: they knew how to take tin and mix it, at VERY high temperatures, with copper, and make bronze, which is a tough, strong metal. You can make it into tools, but you can especially make it into weapons, which changes life tremendously. This new blended culture pretty much immediately began building large stone henges (circles) all over the British Isles and northern France (one is Stonehenge, and another is Avebury, which I talked about earlier). They were ritual places, and most seem to have something to do with the 8 solar calendar feasts, and, most importantly, they involved a HUGE amount of labor, in terms of man-hours. Some of the stones are so large that archeologists have trouble imagining how these people managed to perform this labor. And the large circles required commitment over long periods of time (decades, at least). I like to imagine a new hierarchy, not based on hunting or farming skills, but on knowledge of the sky and of the seasons and of metallurgy, with a priestly caste living off the labor of the many, who believe fervently in the magical power of their leaders and of the ritual places they are building.

So I get an image of a group of priests/priestesses sitting around on this exact spot, in what will become the center of this large Grange henge, and waiting while the sun rises and sets each day. They would need to do this over many years, to make sure that the sun rose and set in the exact same spot from year to year. Other people would have had to wait on them. These religious leaders from time to time would set a peg in the ground and say, “ This is it!!! Two stones have to go right here, to make a V, for the sun to rise within!!” They would have had to have had an exact picture of the circle as they wanted it to be, before a single stone was moved there. And they would have had to be absolutely certain of their calculations. How many grassy picnics did they have on that spot, right in the exact center of the circle they wanted to build? And for how long was the circle used in a ritual way? I can see a priestess on the early morning of the Summer Solstice, with the entire circle filled with waiting people; she waits until the exact moment the sun is rising through the processional entrance way, and she herself enters, with the Solstice sun behind her, flaming her hair. If she did it just right, the hundreds of people within the circle would be powerfully moved and awed. IN this photo, you are looking INTO the circle through the processional entrance.

Now, who the heck knows what she did next? And why did they build a second, and third, henge, just 150 feet or so, from the large one? What, where they practice henges? Were they like the little kids’ table at family parties: the kids had their own ceremonies nearby, because they didn’t fit in the large one? Or because the grown-ups didn’t want the kids overhearing/seeing what was going on in the large one? Who knows? But they left behind multiple henges in one grouping, and then more scattered around the low hillsides all around the lake.

This was the center of the religion of Aine (pronounced Anya), a derivative of Anu and Danu, the Great Goddess of the Celtic people who came from Central Europe (the river Danube is named for her). She became, over time, the Fairy Queen, who gave meadowsweet its scent, the Ban Sidhe (banshee), the mermaid who lives in the lake and keeps the fabric of time and of human existence, and, later, the Christian Saint Ide. Aine, as the ancestor of the local tribes, was an important component of the inauguration of the local chieftain kings, and they were inaugurated on her hill, Knockainie (now pronounce Nock Ainie, instead of Nock Anya), which also has at least three cairns on its top. Annual rituals occurred there every year up through the late 1800s on the eve of the Summer Solstice, when processions of the entire parish would culminate in a bonfire on the top of the hill, and young men would carry flaming brands through the fields from the top, to fertilize them and bring good luck.

At the lake itself, which is a wonderfully peaceful place, there are three hills of importance. On one, there is visible evidence (which you can visit) of ancient homes, animal containments, and fields. On another, Knockfennel (the top of from which you can see all the way to the hills of Clare, four mountain ranges, and the mouth of the Shannon out past Limerick. You can also see the Paps of Dana, according to the web pages about it, and ,my guess is that this is not accidental) , there are Iron Age stone forts and “castle” ruins, along with yet another stone circle (we felt like the first people to visit that one in ages). And on Knockadoon are more settlements (at least 17 houses), with a crannog (a human-made island—for defensive purposes) at its base, with evidence of human settlement there for thousands of years. The lake itself has yielded an enormous assortment of bronze axes and spear-heads, along with a beautiful, decorated, round bronze shield. It is a place one can spend hours upon hours exploring, which we did. We visited at least one passage grave and two ring forts on top of another hill overlooking the lake.

A special note deserves to be made of the local farmer, Timothey Casey, whose legal address is Great Stone Circle, Holycross, Bruff, County Limerick, Ireland (ours here is Derry Cottage, Dromore, Aglish, Clonmel, County Waterford, Ireland. The way it works is that each of the place names is a sorting postal station: Derrry Cottage, or Great Stone Circle, are the exact places, and Dromore and Holycross are the most local post offices. One step up are Aglish and Bruff, which are slightly larger towns. In our case, there is one more regional post office: Clonmel, which is a small city. Then come the counties, then the country). Tim owns the property that the large henge and the smaller ones near it are on. He maintains them on his own, because he is obviously so proud of them he can’t contain it. He has a limp and a couple of other physical problems. So he stands at the entrance to the henge and asks for 2 euros each, with a cut rate for large groups. Some folks grumble, but I think it’s worth it for the welcome one can get. Tim met us when we were there in January a few years ago, and was just as welcoming then as he is now. If he feels you are friendly and nice, he gives you extras, such as more information, a post card he made of the summer solstice sun rising through the processional stones, and scenes from a book that show the circle and his children within it. Tim was so interested in our visit that he waited around for us to be finished so he could talk with us again and say goodbye.

What was remarkable is that he asked where we were from, and told us that the very last people admitted to the henge were also from Western Massachusetts! It gets even better: one of them lives in Wendell, which is right up the mountain behind us!!! We joke that Wendell is where Montague Center (that’s us) hippies go when Montague Center isn’t hippy enough for them (in case you’re unaware, Montague Center is major hippy-ville. That’s why we like living there).

As we spoke with the 3 women from Wendell and Springfield, I commented that I always mispronounce Wendell (stress on the last syllable) because that’s how they pronounce it in North Carolina. It turned out that, while 2 of them live in Springfield MA, one of them had recently moved from Chapel Hill!! She knew where Garner is! And she had interviewed for an administrative job at UMass and we had a fun discussion about that administration, while standing outside a magical 4-5000 year old henge in western Ireland. Weird world, isn’t it?

So anyway, it was a wonderful day. WE stood inside 3 stone circles, a half dozen stone ring forts, and a number of 4-5000 year old human homes. WE also visited one burial chamber and climbed and walked on three hills that were considered sacred, powerful, and magical. We met a lovely man who tends the henge and 3 women from our neighborhood back home (we also met a couple of people from the Arizona branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism). By the time we got home we were absolutely exhausted, but it was worth it to see this place without sleet. :)

To see more on Lough Gur and the stone cirlce, visit this web site:

http://www.nd.edu/~ikuijt/Ireland/Sites/cnoetzel/index.htm

Derry Cottage, a splendid Irish holiday spot

We wanted to put in a pitch for this place we’ve been staying the last three weeks. Derry Cottage on the banks of the River Blackwater is perfect for anyone who wants a quiet place, with a comfortable bed and soft chairs, a warm solarium, wi-fi, room to spread out, gorgeous views, easy access to the whole of southern Ireland, the ability to save money by cooking for yourself (but really nice places to eat out if you wish), the best bakery in Ireland nearby, friendly hosts, neighbors and dogs, and at a great price. Tony, our host, said that if you look in either direction on the river, what you see is exactly what you would have seen in 1850. Practically nothing has changed. All you see are the castle, the tower, the river, a forest, and farm fields. Maybe one car per day goes by, and we take an hour long walk every day without being passed by a car. When I was online looking for a place to stay in Ireland, what was attractive about this place was its price (one of the absolute best in Ireland), its location, and the comfortableness of the place. It’s not large enough for a family, but it’s absolutely great for one person or for two. So if you are looking for a place to relax, to write, to read, to hike or to meditate, PLUS to see lots of Ireland within a couple of hours’ drive, you should consider Derry Cottage. Here’s the link http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/rental-property.aspx/World/Europe/Ireland/County-Waterford/Apartment-22358?s=ef.

Tonight (end of July) we watched the sun go down behind the hill across the river at about 8:40, about an hour and a half earlier than three weeks ago!! Summer moves quickly here, so far north. But it’s something you can watch happen, as you’re living right outside with it. It’s a glorious place to stay.

coastal Cork

Some photos from today, from the beach and harbor near Youghal, a nearby town on the coast.

Kinsale, whiskey, and coast

The blog only allows us to put a maximum of 5 photos up at once (I know, I know, we can load albums onto facebook etc, but my mom can't access those and I like doing the blog. So we''ll have to figure something else out at some point.
At any rate, I wanted to post a few more photos from today (Sunday). We drove to Kinsale, the prettiest darn town you'll ever see, with adorable streets, houses, and more restaurants than you could eat in, every meal, for a week. It also boasts lots of glitzy-looking tourists, including very glam ones from the continent. Not the kind of place we've been typically skulking about.

The 1st photo above is of the hiking trail--which at this point is still a trail--above the river, and gives a sense of the distance to the bottom of that mountain that you saw in our last blog. The 2nd photo is looking back, down the Nire River Valley. Aren't you proud of me, Nick and Anna?

Today, Sunday, we went to Kinsale, as described in the last post. Here is a photo to give you the sense of what I mean when I describe it as adorable and gorgeous.


And on the way home, we stopped into Middleton, for a tour of the Old Jamison's Distillery. I took lots of photos, but here is one that shows the stages Irish whiskey goes through as it ages in oak casks (those casks have either had sherry, port, or bourbon in them beforehand, which gives the whiskey its flavor). The first cask has straight-out-of-the-distiller "spirits," a colorless liquid. Then there is whiskey that has aged 5 years, then the next has been aged 8, then 12, then 18 years.At each stage, the amount of liquid in the cask shrinks, as it evaporates ("the angels' portion"). You can see that at 18 years, half the whiskey has evaporated, and it is quite dark and rich. That whiskey is VERY expensive.

Don and I both "volunteered" for the taste-testing part. I had hoped that we would get to taste those different stages of whiskey, but no such luck. We got to taste Jamison's vs. a blended Scotch (yech) whiskey ( I really, really like some very good single malt Scottish whiskeys, but the blended stuff smells like caustic bathroom cleaner and tastes pretty bad) vs. Wild Turkey bourbon (again, yech: too sweet, and also smells pretty bad). Of course, we ALL agreed that he Jamisons won--I think it was a bit of a set-up, myself; if it had been against a good, non-peaty single malt from Scotland, such as Balvenie, I'm not sure which would have won out).
At any rate, not only did we get our diplomas as official whiskey taste-testers, but we also met a group of young people on holiday from-----Sweden!!!!! They were the others in the taste-testing group, and they were very helpful. It's a small world, isn't it? Someone should write a song about that.

Translations from the Irish

Friday we went "mountain hiking" above the Nire River Valley (one of those places where the roads are deemed “Scenic Road” on the road signs). Actually we set off on foot in search of mountain lakes, which were on the map, but gave up and only hiked for 2 hours straight up and then a half hour straight down, instead of 3 straight up and 1 down. So, since we didn’t see any real lakes (just swamps, bogs, and puddles), we decided to call it "mountain hiking." Unfortunately, the entire mountainside was running and weeping water. I am surprised there was any soil left on it.



We encountered, along the way, some Irish sayings that we want to interpret for you. You will notice that Irish is a gentle language.

Irish: “There are some boggy bits.”
Translation: "The entire freaking mountain is so soggy you will sink up to your ankles with every step. Oh—and those sneakers you are wearing? Are you kidding me?"

Irish: “There’s a bit of a river to cross. All the streams feed into it.”
Translation: "There is a wide river that you will have to cross on stones, and either you will have to have the agility of a mountain goat or you will just have to give up and slog through the water in---oh, those sneakers."

Irish: “It’s a fine day.” (spoken by every person one meets)
Translation: "It’s above 60 degrees and not presently raining hard."

Irish: “This sheela-na-gig is located about 10 km. from Urlingford.” (exact directions given in a listing of sheela-na-gigs in Ireland)
Translation: "You will never find it. And what kind of a name is that for an Irish town? Did the Vikings name it? Why didn’t you take the town back?"

Irish: “Are you on holidays, then?”
Translation: "We don’t recognize your face, and maybe we’ve heard you speak a word or two, so clearly you’re not from around here. Can we befriend you?"

Irish: “Well, the sesion (a traditional Irish music session) is in New Birmingham (again, what kind of a name is that for a respectable Irish village?). Do you know it? Do you know how to get there? Take this road out of town, and go through the next village. It won’t look like much; just keep going through it. Then you’ll get to another village; it used to have a pub, but it’s closed now. Just keep going straight through. Then you’ll come to another village. That’s New Birmingham. There’s a pub there: O’Hoolighan’s. That’s not it. Across the street you’ll see a cart with peat in it. Do you know what a farm cart looks like? Well, go around back, because it’s like an H, and the sesion is back there. You’ll see dogs come in, and cats come in, and a turf fire going. I’ll be playing guitar, and Donnchadh Gough—you know him?—he‘ll be playing too. Oh, and ____--the blond guy playing the accordion last night in Dungarvan—he’ll be there too. We play Wednesday nights, but sometimes Thursday. Oh, and sometimes there’s one Sunday afternoons, too, but…come Wednesday night, about half nine. You’ll be able to have one [drink], now, won’t you, before you have to drive back?”
Translation: "If you manage to find this place, which will take you about an hour or so in daylight, if you don’t get lost, you will have one hell of a time and hear some great music."


We did manage to find two sheela-na-gigs (using much better directions than 10 km. from Urlingford) today, after our hike. We went, with our soaking wet shoes and socks, to the medieval (13th century) walled town of Fethard, which was quite an amazing place, with an intact original gate and the city walls still there. One of the sheela-na-gigs is in the city wall, at the Watergate over the river, and the other is in a wall at the old Augustinian abbey (I think it used to be IN the abbey, but got moved to an outer wall). The slightly drunk guy on the bar stool in Fethard said that his mother has one at her home (it might be the 10 km. one. Who knows?), and that some American offered her $5000 for it. Thankfully, she turned him down.

By the way, those musicians named are actually people who play with groups whose CDs you can buy “in American shops.” We heard some of them play Thursday night at Dungarvan, in The Local, which from all appearances is a VERY popular place with diverse kinds of local people. Our drunken bar-stool friend in Fethard said that the owner, who was one of the musicians, and who plays with Danu, a recorded Celtic group (look them up on line). He’s the big guy. He plays bodhran, but Thursday night he was playing the Irish bagpipes. We stumbled on this place, choosing it as the most-promising of the dozens of pubs in Dungarvan, and it seems our instincts were spot-on). Our friend also said that he and his Canadian folk-singer girlfriend—who was not at all drunk—would be going each weekend for the next four out to the western islands off Galway (starting with Inishmaan) to listen to and learn music—he said that if we were still around, we should join them. Unfortunately, we will be leaving Ireland next weekend.

Oh—and one last translation, from today, Sunday: “Kinsale” Translation: Gorgeous, touristy, medieval, amazingly lovely harbor town in what’s called the Gateway to West Cork, on the South-East coast. Greatest claim to fame: the Battle of Kinsale, whereby the last of the Catholic Irish Chieftains, with Spanish help, battled the Protestant British (boooo) in 1601, and lost, ending the Gaelic order in Ireland and legal Catholicism, too. This precipitated what is called “The Flight of the Earls,” as it basically became illegal and dangerous to be a Catholic chieftain any longer, and a number of them took ship for Spain, intending to return with an army to liberate their country, but never returning. Immediately thereafter, Queen Elizabeth put into place the Plantation system, first in Ulster, then in southeast Ireland (remember reading about that?), to more completely control the Irish population, which could only BE controlled through brutal means (this was to remain true for the three centuries).

More Wildflowers--for Valerie

These are the wildflowers we've seen and recognized so far (I looked some up):

Heath, fragrant orchid, broad-leafed everlasting, pea, dog rose, field scabious, thistle, thrift, ivy-leafed toadflax, pellitory-of-the-wall, poppies, chamomile,

herb Robert (Robert geranium,related to cranesbill), buttercup, campion, cat’s ear, centaury, clover, daisy, feverfew, heather,
fleabane, fuschia, giant rhubarb, purple loosestrife, meadowsweet ( spyria, from which salisylic acid comes, for aspirin), mullein, common fragrant orchid, foxglove, agrimony, angelica, sea aster and other asters, Himalayan balsam, hedge bindweed (wild morning glory),
brambles (blackberries), lesser burdock (a thistle), thistle, burnett rose, honeysuckle, yarrow, queen anne's lace.

driving in a non-rationalized land

Tuesday:

I just put on the electric kettle to make some tea, as it is midnight and I am wheezing asthmatically. I am wheezing—as is Donald, but whiskey is his medicine of choice—because we were just laughing harder than we have laughed in ages, over a book that I bought used (at the Book Mill, of course) to bring with us, called “McCarthy’s Bar: a Journey of Discovery in Ireland,” by Pete McCarthy. Both a travel book and a seriously comic (hah!) read, McCarthy’s chapter was about what we had just gone through today, at a higher level than every other day. He was describing trying to find a stone circle in west Cork, and was having a devil of a time. He kept thinking that he had finally put Michael Collins’ (architect of the successful, if brutal, 1919-1921 Irish rebellion from England) birthplace behind him, but kept coming to it again and again. He also finally spied the stone circle off in the distance, but couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to get to it, by car or by foot. He, like us, considered giving up, but “finding it had become the moral high ground by now.” He comments that when you are looking for an Irish national monument, “you would never guess that tourism is their number one industry.”

It was gorgeous today. So we put aside our work and set off this morning for the coast. We went first to Dungarvin and visited the Norman castle-fort from the first decade of the 1200s (the first version of the fort, built 1172, was wooden and across the river) and the town churches and cemeteries—a form of entertainment we discovered we both enjoy, way back when we were first married. J The exhibit at the castle was excellent, and the guide wonderful and helpful. By the way, did you know that Sir Walter Raleigh, after being Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, was imprisoned for 13 years and executed for treason?

We then decided that, since it was such a gorgeous day, we would follow the advice of the friendly woman we chatted with in the local Catholic church, and take the coastal road north. It was beautiful, with cliffs and rocky beaches, fascinating geological sign-boards (did you know that 460 million years ago, Antarctica was near the North Pole? I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true!), and a nice chat with the 4^th and 5^th hitchhikers we’ve given lifts to (a mom and her son).

After visiting and clambering around a number of gorgeous rocky coves, we started looking for some of the local dolmens, a half dozen scattered burial cairns that for some reason have survived in a very small region of north-eastern Waterford County. We have a book that tells you where they are and, sort of, how to get to them. This is where the difficulties set in. There are a number of problems with finding ANYTHING in Ireland, or at least in this part of Ireland, if you’re on your own. If you’re here on a tour or with someone from here, then you wouldn’t notice these problems, but here’s a short list of the difficulties faced by lone American travelers, used to road signs, to roads having names or at least numbers, and to maps and roads actually matching:

1. Even good maps, such as the one I spent quite a few dollars on and that supposedly shows the back roads, don’t really have most of the roads that exist in this area (they did in Clare, where there were few roads at all, at all). Another way of putting it is that most of the County Waterford and Cork roads are not on the map.

2. The roads that ARE on the map often do not do what the map says they do. Seriously. The map shows, for instance, a road coming into a small village and turning left. In fact, no road goes to the left. Instead, the road either goes straight or right.

3. The map gives road numbers for most of the roads that it shows. But 99% of those roads in real life never say what number they are (only the really big ones, like the highways, do, and there aren’t many of them). Even the locals have no idea what number a main road is. They just say, “Well, if you want to go straight into Waterford, you take the right hand road at the second traffic circle, but if you want to go to the highway, go straight through that circle.” So you never are quite sure if you are actually on a road you wish to be on.

4. While this corner of Ireland is FILLED with hundreds of small roads and lanes, not a single one of them has a name. Or maybe they do. But those names are NEVER on a road sign. So you have to simply turn at the house with the monkey tree, or at the lane with a house at the corner, or turn west (?) after the church, or take the second left after the traffic circle. So, in other words, you never quite know what road you are on (note: city and large town streets are named).

5. Given that you never know what road you are on, the only thing you can do is take a road that SEEMS to be going in the direction you want to go in, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, all the roads do a LOT of turning and twisting, so in fact, you may end up going in a completely different direction from the one you were hoping for. We found that out the other day when we found ourselves, after driving for about a half hour, back at the same house-with-the-monkey-tree we had started from. J

6. The very few signs that exist are very confusing in multiple ways. One way is that the distances that are given seem to mean “sort of.” As in, when it says something is 2, it really means that “it is somewhere between 1 km. and 3 km., but we don’t want to put decimals on the sign, but if the sign is old it may be in miles.” Additionally, it is often hard to tell which direction a sign is pointing in. Sometimes you come to a stop sign and you are trying to follow the same road you have been on (according to the darn map, anyway), and the sign seems to suggest that the road goes straight ahead, but there is no straight ahead. Or one of us thinks it points left and the other thinks it points right (seriously). That’s how we end up back at the monkey tree.

7. Worse yet, we realized in two towns (at least) that someone (we assume 13 year-olds, please God) plays with the road signs on purpose, turning them to point the wrong way. So for instance, we could actually SEE the police station to the right, and yet the road sign pointed straight on, while the town center was clearly straight on, and …you guessed it.

8. Amusingly, the guide book we were using was a bit cavalier about how to get places. So, for instance, it gave directions such as these: “From the R685 (?) east of Tramore continue through Leperstown (my note: not on map) to the third crossroads where five roads meet. Turn left for about a mile (my note: rental car speedometers register kilometers, not miles, and anyway, what is “about” a mile?) with Knokadirragh Hill (?) on your right. The cairn is on the summit of the south eastern end (?). Take the lane up to the mast and keep going.” ??? Or this one: “About (there that is again) 4 miles south west of Waterford and 2.5 miles north of Tramore (measuring from where????). Take the R682 (no one knows which road that is) from Tramore to Waterford (she really means TOWARDS Waterford) and turn right at the first crossroads (for where??!!!). After about (!!!) 2 miles, it is signed where another road joins from the left. Just past here (?) across a field on the left (nope, it was not just past here at all), the dolmen is just visible (if you have eyes like a hawk and already know exactly where it is and what it looks like, then there is a bump in a wall). Check house opposite for access.” This dolmen we drove past over and over, and finally a local saw us and took pity on us. It was quite a hike across a very large field until we got there. The only signs for it were a kilometer away. There was no marker nearer, to indicate it was there. A second dolmen, the one we had actually set out to find, and thought was down the same road (it wasn’t), we stumbled upon accidentally, by seeing a sign out on the main road (which turned out to be the 682, I think). Here are the directions for getting to another nearby one: “1.5 miles north of Fennor church. Go west from Fennor church and take the first right. After (how far after?) 1 mile, turn right up an avenue (what the heck is an avenue? Not a road? Not a lane?) past houses (are you kidding me? there are dozens of houses here) to a T junction (that means a stop sign) and bear left (sorry, we’re still looking for that avenue). The cairn is through a field gate on the left at the top of the hill (what hill? We must have made a wrong turn a while back, but at which point? There are numerous roads out here and at this point we have no clue how to even get back to the main coastal road). It is visible from the road (really? Let’s not and say we did.)”.

So, despite our travel travails, we managed to see two beautiful, impressive, mind-boggling dolmens, which took us a good hour each tracking down, although they were within a couple of miles of each other. It was a beautiful day, and we did quite a bit of tramping around the countryside, traipsing through fields, hiking down to and on beaches, which is a wonderful way to spend half a day, for us. And then, wonder of wonders, the road we were on—it HAD to be the R682—said that the N25 was ahead (that’s the main “highway” running north-south from Dublin towards Cork and is invaluable to us, especially as it is consistently identifiedJ ). That was exactly the road we wanted!! Except that we went UNDER it, and there was no way onto it. So why did they tell us to go this way to get to it? We then saw a set of signs, with Waterford (wrong direction) listed and some other not-on-the-map town. After driving around a bit, it turned out that this obscure town to the south had an entrance onto the highway, but the sign didn’t tell us that it would. In other words, it didn’t say “X-Ville and the N25, this way. ” THAT would have been helpful. Instead, at the one well-signed (in the sense that there were large signs that said very clearly how to get to some places) spot on today’s trip, it didn’t give the one piece of information that would be most important and helpful in deciding which direction the driver who is unfamiliar with the area is going to choose.

So, basically, from a sociological perspective, what it comes down to is that Ireland has not been rationalized. No one has ever said to themselves, “What can we do to make things more efficient, run smoother, so people don’t get lost, so tourists and other outsiders can find things, so the postal service can find new people? Should we maybe make sure that the road numbers given on the map are actually on the roads themselves? Should we give country roads names, and number the houses on them, so people can tell each other—and emergency workers—where they are? Should we make sure the maps match reality? Should we make road signs less movable and more straightforward and easy to read? Should we introduce decimals into the metric system? And should we make sure that every crossroads has at least one sign telling the driver where they will end up—or which road they will be on—if they choose each direction?

The cool thing about this, of course, is that this lack of rationalization is exactly why people like us come to a country like Ireland in the first place. It is still the kind of place where strangers take you themselves to places rather than try to explain it, where the postal worker knows where everyone is, where everyone who lives there knows what they need to know and the names of everyone in town and of all the roads (and my guess is that they all know we are here, too). The shops and pubs are independent and locally owned. You can see, grazing in the fields, the sheep and cows that are providing you with your milk and meat (and, man, I LOVE that yellow-colored cream that tastes like heaven). The magical quality of the country depends on it NOT having been turned into a neatly signed, shopping mall-ed, emergency-lane-d iron cage.